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Americans expected the current year to be better than it turned out but are more hopeful about the year to come. This is similar to findings in previous years. Still, adults are less optimistic about the upcoming year than they’ve been in the previous seven years of surveying.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 35% of Adults expect 2011 to be a good year or better, the lowest level of optimism found since the end of 2003. Nineteen percent (19%) say 2011 will be a poor year. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Optimism about the next year has hovered in this range in late December surveys for the past three years. But in late 2007, 68% expected the following year to be a good, if not better, one. In late December 2006, 57% said the same of 2007.

Only 22% of Adults rate 2010 as a good year or better. That includes four percent (4%) who say it was an excellent year and two percent (2%) who think it was the best year ever. Thirty-one percent (31%) classify 2010 as a poor year overall.

However, 37% of Americans predicted 2010 would be at least a good year, while 23% thought it would be a poor one.

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The survey of 1,000 Adults nationwide was conducted on December 28-29, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

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